When you’re building a mobile app, prototypes can help you reduce half the unnecessary features. They are the ones to validate your ideas, gather user feedback, and launch quickly.
If you’ve never built an app prototype before, follow this detailed guide to get started.

What is a Mobile App Prototype?

A mobile app prototype is an interactive mockup of your planned app idea. It is often detailed with specific design features and animations of functionality that will exist in the final version.

App prototypes are more like blueprints for developers to work. They don’t have any real features to test. However, they are still useful to validate core features and align the teams on your app’s vision.

Proof of concept vs. Prototype vs. MVP

Although they’re great, prototypes aren’t the only way to validate concepts. Other ways you can build your app’s first version include minimum viable product (MVP) and a proof of concept.

Proof of concepts are basic versions that test technical feasibility. Generally, they stay as a part of internal testing to validate ideas quickly. The flaw is: they don’t have any functionality and thus, you can’t take further steps to build a real app.

Prototypes are interactive mockups of your app with functionality, design, and user flows. Unlike proof of concepts, a prototype shows your idea more clearly. However, you still need to rebuild from scratch to turn it into an app.

MVPs are functional, early versions of an app with its core features. They can help define your product-market fit with real user feedback. In addition, they can be scaled into an app with iterations.

The tricky part with all of them is: you need to start from scratch to build a real app. With AI app builders like Natively, it all gets done on one platform. Thus, you get time to focus on user feedback and retention — allowing you to scale faster.

Types of mobile app prototypes

Depending on the needs, mobile app prototypes can vary from simple basic sketches to interactive designs that feel like a real app. We can put these types of app prototypes in two major categories: low-fidelity and high-fidelity.

Low-fidelity prototypes are limited to simple wireframes and screens. They are mainly used to illustrate the look of a mobile app and establish user flows.
High-fidelity prototypes are more detailed and resemble an app as it’ll actually function. They include interactive designs with animations and audio to realistically represent an app.

You can choose any one of these prototypes based on your goals. Are you trying to validate your app idea, map out the user flow, or understand the interface? The goal you choose defines the prototype ideal for it.

Why You Should Build a Mobile App Prototype

App prototypes are a must for early-stage startups that are trying to move fast. But that isn’t enough reason for why you should build mobile app prototypes.

Here’s what an app prototype benefit you with:

Visualize the idea

Prototypes allow you to visualize, communicate, and share your app concept. It’s a way to put your ideas into something tangible. Thus, you can use it to execute the app’s development better.

If you’re building solo, prototyping helps you test and validate ideas in the early stages. For instance, when you build with Natively’s mobile app builder, you can view what your app idea looks like in a real mobile app.

Prototypes for teams are even better. They help you align your entire team on the same page before development begins. This also reduces the need for major changes in the future.

Validate ideas

App prototypes also help you measure development costs for the final product. Here’s why: Prototypes are meant to identify potential issues early on. This significantly reduces the need for major changes after launch.

In general, user testing can make app idea validation incredibly easy if prototypes were functional. However, you can build functional prototypes with tools like Natively and scale the development from there.

Reduce technical debt

When you validate ideas early, it also helps reduce technical debt and expenses from further changes. You don’t need to make room for major changes in the future and thus, saving your team from constant expenses.

How to Create an App Prototype: 5 Simple Steps

Creating an app prototype doesn’t have to be complicated. Here’s a detailed guide on how you can create it in five steps:

1. Do user research

Prototypes with a strong product-market fit always start with user research. It is the most defining stage of creating an app prototype.

The goal here is to identify your users’ actual needs and problems. Since it involves market research, this stage can shape the way you design your prototype. It also gives you insight for the next step, which is, defining core features.

2. Identify user problems and core features

Once you’ve identified user needs, you can also define the core problems to solve. This leads you to the core features your app needs to have.

Ask yourself questions such as:

What are the problems are you trying to solve? How does your app solve these problems?
What are the most basic functionalities you need to solve the core problem?
How will these features work together?

Use a prioritization framework such as RICE to decide the features that need to be added first. It can also help you create timelines for different features on a product development roadmap.

3. Create a few designs

After user research and defining core features, you can finally get started with the prototype. Start with a few low-fidelty, rough sketches of your application.

These sketches should include the screens your app will have along with the exact features on each screen. Your goal is to put down all the UI elements, key screens and features in your sketch.

4. Build a prototype

Once you’ve chosen a prototyping tool, you can start building a prototype that can be used and tested. Here’s your guide to get started:

Create all the primary app screens from the sketches you created earlier.
Build the basic UI elements that users need to navigate the app and complete core tasks, such as buttons, form fields, lists, and so on.
Create an idea of what your app will look like with text fields, colors, and animations.

If you’re building a functional prototype with tools like Natively, add elements and features such as gestures and navigational functionality.

5. Test your app prototype

The last step is to put your prototype to an actual test. Share your prototype with users and investors to gather unbiased feedback.

Conduct user tests with your target audience. Observe their interactions carefully with your app prototype and take their feedback. For mobile apps, it’s best to preview your app on native devices with tools like Expo Go.

Best Practices for Mobile App Prototyping

Creating a prototype isn’t all about the design itself. With the wrong steps, you can end up spending more time and resources than needed.

Save yourself from extra work with these mobile app prototyping best practices:

Focus on key features. Limit the prototype to the most essential features based on user needs and goals. Focus on these key features to achieve a strong product-market fit, avoiding any extra design your app could have.
Choose the type of prototype before you begin. Pick the type of prototype you’ll build depending on your goals with it. An interactive prototype is better for user testing while a simple wireframe is enough to align on the interface, for instance.
Start simple and then add details. Prototypes are meant for simplicity and imperfection. Don’t try to build the perfect prototype in the first version. Start simple and add details as you gather feedback.
Create a design system early. When you build your prototype, you should also create your design system. A design system ensures that your app’s UI stays consistent across all screens. It also makes your process efficient.
Test your prototype on real mobile devices. The way a mobile app works on desktop preview is much different than the way it would work on real mobile devices. If you build your prototype with Natively, you can preview your apps on Expo Go.

Bottom Line

Most prototyping tools can create wireframes and advanced UI elements only. While that’s what prototypes are supposed to be, functional prototypes can make building and launching an app much faster.

Natively’s mobile app builder lets you validate, build, and scale your app within one platform. The no-code app generation tool works on prompts for iteration and app generation. Thus, you can scale your prototype without the hardwork.

Create your prototype’s first version and build your app with it in minutes. Let your ideas work with Natively.